


Triboluminescence

by midnightfeast



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Other, Some Humor, Sort Of, Soulmates, a little bit philosophical but mostly just something my brain came up with instead of sleeping, even I don't know where this one shot came from, more like genderless entities, reconnection, very very light mentions of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27454879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightfeast/pseuds/midnightfeast
Summary: Hashirama finds Madara after a long search
Relationships: Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Izuna mentioned
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	Triboluminescence

**Author's Note:**

> So, I am not sure what this is supposed to be ':)  
> It is nothing more than something my brain came up with all of a sudden in the dead of night... Just wanted to write it down and share:) don't take it too serious
> 
> If there is anything that you find offending, please tell me!  
> English is not my first language by the way, so mistakes happen sometimes:)

It happened in a busy downtown café around lunch time.

When Madara had first started coming to this café, it had been more an accident than anything else. It had been rainy that day, and had it not been for the otherwise deserted corner and the softness of the cushions, Madara would have looked for a different spot to pass time in.

Years had passed since then and Madara still sat by the window in that same enourmous armchair, hidden from the street behind plants and an extensive armrest.

Not that anyone would ever dare start a conversation, the second chair at Madara's table had always stayed empty.

As was the usual procedure for places like these, Madara had ordered a meal and a beverage. A sandwich, which sat untouched and slightly wilted next to a stale dark-chocolate muffin and a long-forgotten mug of tea.

Today, however turned unusual fast.

The neighbouring table roared with laughter and Madara looked up to fetch a glance at the three college students passing jokes. Their level of noise was annoying, their inappropriate topic of conversation even more so. Again, one of them said something and they all threw their heads back and roared.

But the moment Madara's eyes closed in exasperation, everything froze.

Those students had stalled mid laugh. Someone's phone had been about to fall, but now it floated between table and floor. Madara threw a glance around and outside the window, a gust of leafs caught by wind stilled and the crowd of passers-by halted in motion.

For a brief second, Madara was just as frozen, in shock perhabs, and convinced to have caused it.

But control of such things never quite ruptured like this. This was not something simple or at Madara's unconscious disposal.

The lack of sound was still familiar enough. An oppressive absence of external stimuli just clarified the difference between what Madara was and the surrounding creation. Not that it mattered. At least it shouldn't.

Because Madara would never be able to forget the bitter taste of frozen time, yet surprising and displeasing it was nonetheless.

And the transgressor revealed themselves fast.

Earth might have halted, but Hashirama moved with the same familiar languid stride. Through a group of tourists and past businessmen mid-conversation, tilted chairs and floating flies, Hashirama came right to the windowfront and waved with a beaming grin through the thick glass at Madara's expressionless face. A single flick of the wrist and the chair opposite Madara was no longer empty. “Hashirama.”

“So here you’ve been hiding.” Hashirama gave him a smile - too broad, too bright, too honest.

“I didn't hide very well if you found me already.”

“Nah, I think I’ve passed through every other city and this was my last option. Really, I was just looking around and felt you.” Hashirama's head only cocked in excitement, but the angle at which the neck bent would have had humans flee the scene. It had Madara cringe. “I'm just really happy right now.”

“Are you really...”

Hashirama only hummed, but the sound vibrated through everything. “Don't you feel it too?”

Human emotions, especially intense bodily ones, didn't come easy to them.

What Hashirama was talking about was the seam between their existences. Madara did not focus often on this bond. To feel it stretch and wail and burn would have made repeadetly walking away from Hashirama harder. But by their close proximity right now, something was mending that Madara hadn't known to be damaged.

And of course Madara felt the buzz of something bright and light for which there was no word in any of the human languages, but Hashirama was right that the closest thing to it was `happiness´.

It didn't mean that Madara had to like it.

They sat there like they hadn't in a very long time.

Centuries had passed since Madara had last seen Hashirama. It had to have been even longer since Madara had last seen Hashirama present as a human.

Memories of ricefields and hardwork, vegetable gardens and a solitary farm came to mind. Even more pictures of a rocky beach and floating robes. Not unlike the way Hashirama was dressed right now, but the appearance they had chosen were different to then.

Madara tried to dettach himself from the current situation, to stifle all physical reactions before they could show. Not that Hashirama was versed enough in human body language to interpret them correctly, but a certain aversion to showing too much came instinctual by now.

Madara had spent a long time among humans, but still...

In earlier times Hashirama once mentioned a theory. It theorised that the reason the humans feared any of their fleshly appearances was, because it could never be enough to put on a suit of bone and skin, and read the manual, without going deeper.

No matter how much work went in to adapt, something always seemed to slip Madara's attention. The eyes were too deep-void black, hair too brisk, movements too liquid, body language too stilted, facial expressions eerie - no matter the emotion.

There was something not quite human around them, easily missed on a first glance. Because this form behaved, this body's muscles moved as they should, but still, a smile was never quite a smile.

The humans' unconsciousness was not easily fooled. They grew wary without even knowing why.

Madara had to evade those eyes and their intense gaze.

“If you’re here just to taunt me you can leave.” Madara stood slowly and with a snap of the wrist, the furniture between them vanished. “I have no desire to indulge you in your mockery.” Nothing in Hashirama wavered at what must have been an effort at irritation in Madara’s face.

“No. No, please stay. I came to entice.” Hashirama mustered their surrounding with unabashed interest, then slowly stood too and focused back on Madara eventually. “Please come back with me. It's really quiet and lonely without you and Tobirama keeps pestering me to do more work, but I can't manage without you.”

“Is that all the reasons you've got?”

“No, of course not. I want to feel whole again. And Izuna keeps asking for you too.”

Madara felt fluttering anger and it had to be strong to be felt so bodily. Even if Madara had tried to stop it, a snort came almost natural by now. “`Nothing more than a pipe dream´ as they say here. All the reasons you've named are in your own interest. Do you even consider the reason I left in the first place?”

“You chose to cede without even having tried.” Hashirama did not know what whining was, but that tone sure came close. “You left to find calm for your mind and a balm for the fresh ache of ...”

“When Izuna left with Tobirama, a part of me left with them.” The look Madara gave for that tried to be angry, but pain had always been too closely bound to rage to fully hide.

Hashirama’s smile faltered. “And your decision was to part us too.”

“I decided to seek distance and solitude. Do you really blame me?” It was spoken dripping in bitterness, even Hashirama was able to pick up on it. “This is nothing we can heal from.”

A bond in an entangled existence like theirs was strong. Technically, Hashirama should have always been enough for Madara to not feel the crippling passage of time or the maddening loss that came with it.

Technically, because from the moment of their first appearance, Tobirama and Izuna had spent a millennia at Madara's and Hashirama's side, had learned from them, had aided them in their new creation, and had heavily influenced their dynamic. It was not normal for any set like theirs to spend such extensive duration with another.

And it had damaged something that they had been told was indestructible.

Maybe their bond had offshot to form a new one, different in nature. Similar to Hashirama's and Madara's bond, any separation hurt, because the concept of pain existed even for beings like them.

“What else is there to do but relish in our creation? Tell me, do you like what you see?” Madara waved around them. “This planet of ours surely developed on its own. Did you not keep watch in my absence?”

A bitter thing to blame Hashirama for, because it was just as much Madara's responsibility to take care of this world.

“Ah.” Hashirama’s eyes roamed the room with a nod almost passable as embarrassment. “You’re right, since you left things went a bit haywire. I didn’t think they’d procreate quite this rapidly. Close to impossible to keep a watch on all of them by now, especially on my own.”

“And you expect me to come back to nothing but work, silence and void.”

Hashirama took a step. Or maybe just floated forward, there was no telling with the wavering fabric in a non-existent breeze and Hashirama’s open palms. “You have me. And if you wanted to see Izuna more regular we could visit, you know. I see them frequently, every other decade or so.”

“And still it will not be as it was before.” Time passed differently for Madara now. Centuries spent amongst humans and quick decay had changed the perception of time Madara had had before. A decade was enough for a human to age significantly. A decade was enough to change a country entirely. Before, unities of time smaller than century had not existed in a way that mattered.

Hashirama had always been more optimistic, almost dreamy. “I bet you’d love to see what they did. Izuna build gigantic rifts of glowing blue stone, fluid like water, but much more nutritious.”

Madara scoffed. “They cannot have more than a couple of water lizards. It took us hundreds of millennia to even see the first interesting mammal.”

“Nah. Their planet looks great. Three moons they have, and only two seasons, which would be a bit boring for me, but Tobirama created these interesting water forests… You know, I thought we should renovate too...”

“No.” Madara disrupted and did not even feel bad for it. “Renovate sure, but we will not take Tobirama’s creation as a guideline.” The emotion might have been muted, but still the overwhelming sensation of grief stung, marinated in sardonic frustration. “I’m more tempted to burn this whole place down. Fan the flames and start anew.”

Somewhere closer to home, Madara thought but didn't say.

Now Hashirama’s brows furrowed into something that was probably the first use of this body’s complex facial muscles for body language. “I don’t want to purge our creation. Look at them,” Hashirama waved around, but Madara didn't follow the gesture, “they wrap their limbs around each other when they are happy and build appliances to transport other lifeforms in.” Hashirama pointed at a bag with a dog that was being carried into the subway, “They made small things to keep in touch, they sign contracts to confirm their loyalty to a partner and they even took our concept of sexual reproduction and gave it a secondary function.”

“Amazing.” Madara said, but it was dripping in sarcasm. “What good has come from any of it? I can think of very little.”

Hashirama sighed, human body deflated in something that looked very much like despair. Madara was unsure whether the motion was meant to be over exaggerated or if that was just Hashirama’s inexpertness with these manifestations. “You're always so sardonic.”

“You'd say that to anyone not as sanguine as you.”

“No actually just you.”

“What do you know of human emotions. You spent less than a normal human lifetime amongst them.”

Both of them only became humanoid when they wanted to remain unseen amongst their creation.

Hashirama had always had a favourite form. Whatever human Hashirama had shifted this body after, they had had chestnut hair, amber skin, an honest face, and mostly androgynus, but sometimes more male, sometimes more female. It hardly mattered.

Madara, in contrast, had tried many over the centuries. Male, female, neither. Grown, more childlike and senior too, but had soon settle on this one. Male, long dark hair to hide an expressionless face behind, fairly tall and fit, somewhat daunting. It guaranteed to be left alone.

But all forms Hashirama took were never quite able to contain the aura of shimmering golden light. It broke through all earthly appearances and wavered with life and vim and a dreaded sense of hope. Earthly life forms might not be able to see it, but to Madara, it was as sickeningly obvious.

At least, the veil of breathing life wrapped around Madara just the same. It was different in shape and feel, but determination laced into the seams of silvery fierceness, just as bright an energy as Hashirama.

Sometimes it was hard to believe that Hashirama had not been chosen for a sun. That the Elders had thrown them into creation together and that golden-boy Hashirama was stuck with Madara.

And now all they had was this damned planet. Only that the task of caring for it never appeared like a burden to Hashirama's idealistic hands.

Stools and armchairs, a coffee bar and college students, spilled coffee and sandwich crumps, deepgreen walls and crème tiles. Surrounded by all this human ordinariness Hashirama seemed amiss.

But Hashirama would’ve looked just as much out of place in a gilded palace or ashen ruins.

Enough, Madara decided, and clapped.

Everything around them vanished.

Time churned onwards once more.

And they were submerged by water.

The roar of a waterfall surrounded them like a fluid blanket with pressure that would have ripped a human deep into the currents, but it did not even ruffle a strand of Hashirama’s hair. It pearled off their form like droplets on a lotus' leaf.

Nonetheless, Hashirama sulked. “Hey! Warn me at least.”

But Madara stepped out of the waterfall and onto a rippling water surface to blend out all noise. “This is one of the rare spots connected to the surface that the humans have not yet discovered. It is about the only place I’d keep save from the flames.”

They stood beneath a roof of mossy green inside a gigantic open cave in the middle of a deep lake with edges covered in rainforest. Through several big holes above, daylight came in and illuminated the entire lake and greenery filtered the light at it's edges.

Hashirama stepped out of the waterfall and over the surface, turned, glanced around, felt the flow of silken energy of something that Madara tried to ignore with every visit. “How did you find it? It looks like one of us came up with it.”

Hashirama’s hair did not move with the wind, but the strands swayed when Hashirama turned to grin at Madara. “Could have been a cameo, but I doubt Tobirama would have done anything without asking us for permission. Izuna however…”

“Izuna would’ve turned it into a maze, riddles and challenges lined all the way through. This,” Madara gave a languish wave at all the wilderness that surrounded them, “wears an unfamiliar handprint.”

If not for the strange energy innate to everything within, Madara would have assumed it to be one of Hashirama's pet projects.

The air was so humid, Madara could almost see the droplets float through the darkness. “If Izuna built it, I’ll grow a volcano somewhere they really can’t hide it.”

Now Hashirama seemed uneasy. “Tobirama will be unhappy.”

“Tobirama will have Izuna to thank for it.”

“But I thought you liked this place.”

A group of different monkeys parted from the thick green of the rain forest to sway across the open area to drink from the water. They were not bothered by Hashirama’s open interest, even when Hashirama flickered closer to see them better. They only chirped and watched them in return.

Animals never perceived them as a threat, sometimes more like conspecific, which could become weird at times.

“Who ever formed it, it was still an infringement on our authority.”

Hashirama watched the monkeys wash, then play. “You know, I really hate that you added volcanos to out planet too. Some may be a necessary by-product, but they are just so unsightly. And hard to get rid of. If only draining them would help, but all we get is a nasty, annoying secretion and a bigger bump after.”

Madara clapped and they stood atop a mountain, the oldest long dead volcano of their planet, and they overlooked a city so large, it’s blinking lights and noisy night-time traffic stretched all the way to the horizon.

Nothing grew up here. They may have been surrounded by nothing but darkness, but that did not matter to vision like theirs. Only red dust, brought by a cold northern wind had settled on the surface.

Somewhere below, Madara could still feel the destructive power of lava of their doing, like the extension of their own, it pulsed with energy familiar enough that if he concentrated on it enough, it would become one. Madara could end it all, a snap of index and thumb and the city below would vanish in searing waves of heat.

Easy it was, to question the reason of their existence like this. To think of a before and after and will it all to unravel a meaning deeper than surface entertainment.

But Madara stayed standing and merely watched, allowed wind to ruffle strands of hair and coldness to seep in for a second to try and feel human.

The rage had mellowed out. The wish for more remained. And above it all, a pulsation Madara had come to know as loneliness.

But next to it, curls of something unknown flipped, a feeling like warm water drenched the space beyond the ribs in an emotion Madara had not encountered before. A word came to mind, it made no sense, but the sensation stayed and attached closely to the buzzing connection where Hashirama and Madara were sewn as one.

After their quick change in place, Hashirama’s fleshly form nearly stumbled down the steep cliff in front of them because of the sudden change. Of course, Hashirama did not fall, but it was a close call.

And Madara was amazed how well Hashirama’s eyes could convey sulky betrayal already. “You’re mean. Did you learn that from the humans too?”

“It seems, you don’t even remember me as I have always been.” Which was impossible. What they witnessed, they’d never forget. There was no way for them to entirely delete from their recollection, but only to start anew. Aside, they were connected by an unseverable flow of essence. Madara might try to change, but Hashirama would always know him truely.

The only thing they would never know was the origin of their own creation. They came into existence, the Elders brought them, but for entities that never forgot to not remember their own beginning was still unsettling and felt especially strong in these human bodies.

Madara snorted nonetheless. “There is nothing I could’ve learned from humans. Although, there have been some weird occurrences over the centuries.”

They supposedly thought of the same thing.

“Ah.” Hashirama’s cheeks blushed, which was an impressable feat for someone like them. Hashirama sat down right at the edge, the white long robes did not dirty. “As I said, when you left I wasn’t really able to keep things according to plan.”

“When do things ever go to plan when you're involved.”

“How would you know? You've been gone too long.” A low blow, but one Madara deserved.

Madara sat down close enough to Hashirama to have their physical forms touch. Something about that had a burst of energy twist and turn the bond within. “We have to stop their attempts to interstellar travel. Izuna would never speak to me again if something of ours stumbled upon their planet.”

“Izuna talked to me about that too.” And if possible, Hashirama’s shoulders sacked even more. “Tobirama said we had to get control back over their reproduction rates. And that climate problem, unless we wanted to get rid of some of them.”

And the way Hashirama rubbed a hand over eyes in a poor attempt of a very human reaction, was comical enough to have Madara laugh. “What did you call it? A secondary meaning to sexual reproduction? They just like to fuck, call it what it is.”

“It is not as if they knew what we envisioned, especially since we failed to lead them properly.” Again, a sigh. “I mean, what did we even envision? I like it the way it is, sort of sweet to see them show companionship like this.” Hashirama must have spent more time among the humans than Madara knew off. Especially since the look Madara received next was close to nervous awkwardness. “Have you ever tried?”

“No.”

Hashirama raised a brow. “Not even once? I thought all these years would have made you curious.”

“No.” Madara said, but Hashirama’s tone irked him. “You, however, sound like you did.” And something in the chest of this form hated that thought.

Hashirama only shrugged and smiled. “There is no one but you I could ever feel whole with.” Then the darkness of those pupils sought Madara and it had this human form shiver despite the warm wind that rustled the bushes beneath. “The unity they attempt, but will always fail to achieve, is what we have.”

“So you’d vilify yourself if it was with me?” Madara should not be able to feel embarrassment, but this body sure could.

Hashirama’s apparently didn’t, because that body didn’t even flush. “It is hardly debasing. The humans do it all the time.”

Sexual reproduction had simply emerged and fairly early, and then evolved. A messy process of interchanging bodily fluids and Madara had made the conscious effort to stay as far from it as possible. That some lifeforms seemed to have discovered it as something beyond its primary function was nothing they should care about. “These human bodies will feel pleasure, but to us it will mean nothing. Sex is for those lifeforms with a limited lifespan.”

Hashirama wore that expression that spelled trouble rooted in curiosity. It had led to the creation of gigantic trees in parts of their planet, simply because Hashirama had wondered how big they could become. “But why not try?”

Madara frowned. “I may wear a male form now, but we are neither man nor woman, how do you recon we would try.”

“I don’t know. Regardless of gender, in all sorts of combinations, the humans do it. Does it matter anyway? Isn’t it more about the sensation and less about the how of the actual physical act?”

Ridiculous. And Madara was very tempted to flicker Hashirama back to where they could get Tobirama to keep Hashirama’s ideas in check. “How would I know? Quit thinking, you’re doing horribly anyway.”

“But now I’m curious and who else am I going to ask?”

“Did you come to find me for this alone?”

“No.” If possible, Hashirama seemed offended. “Of course not.”

“But why are you so keen then?”

“That this is something we don’t have knowledge in irks me. Even more because it is part of our own creation.”

“That sounds more like something Tobirama would say. But even Tobirama knows that there are things we should refrain from doing. To get too involved with a creation of ours is high on that list.”

“Please.” Hashirama sought eyecontact, but Madara didn't give him the satisfaction.

“You’re not convincing enough and you know it.”

“But why not?”

“Why are you so insistent on trying? All we’ll manage is to make a mockery of ourselves?”

“Tobirama says there is no way to understand your creation if you haven’t lived amongst them for a while.”

“I don’t know about you, but I did.” Close to a thousand years Madara had ventured amongst humans of all origin and continents, never quite part of any social circle, but close enough to witness.

“And yet you never truly related. Physical interaction is such a big part of most existing lifeforms.” Madara felt a reflexive frown, but Hashirama kept on talking. “Why not ours?”

“I would not count us amongst their category of lifeforms.”

“But why not? Who will judge us for this anyway? Tobirama and Izuna surely have tried it too.”

Now Madara frowned. “How do you know? Did Tobirama tell you?”

“Maybe.”

“Liar.”

“How do you know they didn’t? What is there to it, but the gain of experience and something new to waste time with?”

“You shouldn’t be wasting time, you should be helping our creation fix itself.”

“They will not eradicate themselves further if we choose to rest for a while. Even if, we might get new water lizards… Or maybe they’ll finally discover those weird things you put down in the Mariana Trench. Would you prefer someone more like this…” Hashirama’s body shifted and it was weird to watch it happen when it had been so long since the last time anyone had changed in front of Madara. Hashirama did not change a lot, jaw more prominent, shoulders wider.

“… or like this?” And Hashirama’s eyes stared like coal briskets, mustering Madara attentively, even when the face around them changed again. It grew softer, the body shifted into barely there roundness beneath the floaty material.

And before Madara could say anything, Hashirama’s form shifted again into what it had looked like before. “Or I can stay like this. We could even take the form of...”

“Stop that. I hate that you try to talk me into something as libidinal as this.”

They were one. Life flowed between them and still that had felt like a new sort of vulnerability and it had Madara’s human body warming uncomfortably. Better to avert the gaze and concentrate on the planes blinking above.

At least Hashirama had the ability to recognise when a push was going too far.

So they sat there in silence for a relatively long while.

For Madara, who used to spend days on end watching the tides change and fisher men sailing out and coming in, a single night spend staring at the blinking lights in the distance should not have evoked an antsy feel.

But before either of them said anything more, the horizon changed. Purple, Orange, blue, red, all those and Hashirama kept nudging their shoulders in a attempt to watch the stars.

Madara almost missed the words spoken into the endless void above, because they were no longer of human origin. “You know, I would choose to stay here with you if I could.”

And when their eyes met, Madara felt something in himself settle. Pieces that had fallen astray fell into place and Hashirama's eyes promised what they always had - a defying honesty and fierce determination, but above it all loyalty. “All you have to do is ask and I'd stay. But I fear for what all of this will become without our guidance. And you seem to forget that I lost just the same as you did.”

Hashirama and Tobirama had formed a bond similar to Madara and Izuna.

And Hashirama was right, which Madara knew, but it made answering right away impossible.

Instead their gaze stayed on the changing light.

When Hashirama rose and stretched in an inhuman way, the sun rose behind him.

Right, there was one place Hashirama seemed to fit, graced by the first rays of a promising sun, lit back by light strong enough to fuel an entire solar system and still those rays seemed bland in comparison to that radiating bright smile.

Madara found an answer without thinking about it too hrad. “Fine.”

With an enquiring glance Hashirama turned. “Hm? What do you mean?”

“I’ll come back with you. We need to sort out the mess you let our planet turn into.” And Madara wouldn't say anything closer to an acknowledgement that this world of theirs should not be doomed by their hands.

As many mistakes as there were with the world, the blinding light of aspiration traced itself through even those dark times.

Hope would be crafted by hands that were strong enough to ruin everything, but chose to form by gentle nurturing even the smallest sapling. And Madara would stand watch and protect all they created.

And after an aborted train of thought, Madara's face softened. “And maybe we can... sort something out for your... weird curiosity.”

Madara didn’t wait for Hashirama's mouth to fall open or to answer in any other way. Madara just took a step over the cliff and the physical form shattered into fragments.

Madara's consciousness reached for home. And Hashirama followed.

**Author's Note:**

> Fyi: I tried to keep all genderterms out of this since they are genderless beings, but sometimes mistakes happen, so if you find one, it was not intentional ':)
> 
> If you like, tell me what you think :)


End file.
